Gurlitt Art Trove: Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media restitutes Nazi-confiscated painting

Moni­ka Grüt­ters, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia, and Mar­cel Brül­hart, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the can­ton of Bern at Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern, to­day re­turned the paint­ing “Por­trait de je­une femme as­sise” (Por­trait of a Seat­ed Young Wom­an) by Thomas Cou­ture to the fam­i­ly of the orig­i­nal own­er, Georges Man­del.

The paint­ing from the es­tate of Cor­nelius Gurlitt was on show re­cent­ly in the ex­hi­bi­tion “Gurlitt: Sta­tus Re­port” at the Gropius Bau, Berlin, which end­ed yes­ter­day.

“Re­turn­ing the paint­ing by Thomas Cou­ture to the fam­i­ly of the for­mer own­er is a mov­ing end to the ex­hi­bi­tion on the Gurlitt art trove,” said Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia Grüt­ters. “We have the fam­i­ly of Georges Man­del to thank for en­abling this art­work to be dis­played at all three ex­hi­bi­tion venues in Bonn, Bern and Berlin. This has made it pos­si­ble for the fate of Jew­ish politi­cian Georges Man­del, who was per­se­cut­ed and in­terned by the Nazis, to be brought to the at­ten­tion of a wider pub­lic. This case re­minds us once again that we must nev­er give up in our ef­forts to thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate Nazi art theft, for which Ger­many bears re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Mar­cel Brül­hart said: “Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern de­cid­ed to ac­cept the in­her­i­tance of Cor­nelius Gurlitt in or­der to make a con­tri­bu­tion to in­ves­ti­gat­ing Nazi art theft and to mit­i­gat­ing the in­jus­tice that took place. We there­fore wel­come ev­ery re­turn of an art­work to the right­ful heirs fol­low­ing ex­ten­sive re­search work. What mat­ters above all, how­ev­er, is not the num­ber of resti­tu­tions, but the hon­est and com­mit­ted ef­fort to clar­i­fy the ori­gin of all works from the Gurlitt art trove.”

The team work­ing on the Gurlitt Prove­nance Re­search project at the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion iden­ti­fied the work as Nazi-loot­ed art in Oc­to­ber 2017. A tiny re­paired hole in the paint­ing, which had been doc­u­ment­ed for the por­trait owned by Man­del, helped the prove­nance re­searchers trace the for­mer own­er. Moni­ka Grüt­ters said: “The prove­nance re­searchers’ suc­cess in iden­ti­fy­ing the paint­ing as Nazi-loot­ed art from a tiny de­tail once again un­der­lines the huge im­por­tance of prove­nance re­search. It is and re­mains our obli­ga­tion to ex­am­ine the ori­gin of all cul­tur­al goods which may be cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized through Nazi per­se­cu­tion. Pre­cise­ly be­cause con­clu­sive­ly clar­i­fy­ing the prove­nance of ob­jects is such a com­plex task, it is all the more true that each work that can be giv­en back con­tributes to the recog­ni­tion of the vic­tims’ life sto­ries, and is an im­por­tant as­pect of the cul­ture of re­mem­brance.”

Guil­laume Ol­lagnier, en­voy of the French em­bassy, al­so took part in the han­dover of the paint­ing at the Gropius Bau. The Com­mis­sion pour l'in­dem­ni­sa­tion des vic­times de spo­li­a­tions in­ter­v­enues du fait des lég­is­la­tions an­ti­sémites en vigueur pen­dant l’Oc­cu­pa­tion (Com­mis­sion for the Com­pen­sa­tion of Vic­tims of Spo­li­a­tion Re­sult­ing from the An­ti-Semitic Leg­is­la­tion in Force dur­ing the Oc­cu­pa­tion, CIVS) helped the Ger­man gov­ern­ment make con­tact with the fam­i­ly.

Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern is Cor­nelius Gurlitt’s sole heir and there­fore heir to the Gurlitt art trove. In an agree­ment of Novem­ber 24, 2014, be­tween the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many, the Free State of Bavaria and the Stiftung Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern, it was agreed that the prove­nances of the art­works in the col­lec­tion—which num­ber over 1,500—would be re­searched and the Ger­man gov­ern­ment would re­turn Nazi-loot­ed prop­er­ty to vic­tims or their de­scen­dants.